'Stealth of Days" (Cascine), the debut full-length album by Jensen Sportag, is a lush bouquet of romantic ballads that calls to mind the British dream pop of the '80s and the tender side of George Michael, Prince, Sade and Stevie Wonder. The duo's Austin Wilkinson said jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd's "A New Perspective," a 1963 work that features a gospel choir, was an influence on its disc, as was "R Plus Seven," a new electronic sound collage by Oneohtrix Point Never, the working name of Brooklyn-based composer Daniel Lopatin.

Thus, it may come as a surprise that Jensen Sportag hails from rural Tennessee—New Deal, to be specific, some 35 miles north of Nashville. Mr. Wilkinson and his musical partner, Elvis Craig, grew up in the farming community, met in elementary school, and began collaborating as students in high school in nearby White House. They saw themselves as misfits who shared a love of sophisticated pop and a desire to make music.

"People in our school got their music from the mainstream: mostly country, rap and top 40," said Mr. Wilkinson, who, at 30, is two years younger than Mr. Craig. "That's why Elvis and I bonded so quickly. We discovered we had a deep affection for Stevie Wonder. I hazarded my health by wearing Elton John T-shirts.

"In our families and in school, careers in the arts were for other people," he added, over coffee last month on Manhattan's Lower East Side. "We'd marvel over these albums"—he mentioned works by Hardkiss, Bill Laswell, Rabbit in the Moon, Thee-O and Ween—"and then we'd discover those people had real lives."

From the beginning, the duo saw they were well suited to working together in a yin and yang sort of way. "Elvis is the goose that lays the golden egg but doesn't have the temperament to sit on it," Mr. Wilkinson said. Mr. Craig will write an eight- or a 16-bar loop that his partner will expand. "Our method of making music is more like gardening than songwriting."

Though Mr. Craig plays the guitar and has had some jazz training, neither he nor Mr. Wilkinson considers himself a musician. "We're de facto musicians," said Mr. Wilkinson. "Nashville is a town where you can stumble into any bar and hear a great guitarist. We're not that."

But Jensen Sportag doesn't use pre-recorded samples in its music. "We write our own samples," Mr. Wilkinson said. As the meticulous songs reveal, the duo, whose name is designed to evoke a sporty, vaguely Scandinavian vibe, seeks to engage its listeners with mood and atmosphere, deploying jazz phrasings and minor chords. Under the vocals, each track is layered with waves of synthesized sounds: percussion, strings, muted brass, popping bass, all of which are enhanced by just-right guitar bits. There's no shortage of good ideas at work, and yet the inherent cleverness isn't self-referential. Nor does it detract from the sensation of being invited to dance and sway in a lavish environment.

"The technical aspects, the experimental aspects, the art of layering—we love that. What we hope to do is reconcile that love into something personal," Mr. Wilkinson said.

Though Jensen Sportag's music is pop-based, one source of its sound is the mellow side of house music. But Mr. Wilkinson insists the duo isn't part of the electronic dance music scene. EDM, he said, "has the ability to attack your senses. We're not interested in that. We love the way music can move us in an ephemeral way. There's so much music that captures the in-between moments. Loneliness and isolation: Traditional EDM hasn't been good at dealing with that. Jazz, pop and R&B have.

"We straddle the divide. We have EDM fans and we have fans who like dance and pop music," he added. "We're just not interested in being part of a scene."

Jensen Sportag reflects the duo's personalities, Mr. Wilkinson said. "We're both pretty sensitive people. We make dance music with sensitivity."

Just as "R Plus Seven" by Oneohtrix Point Never deals with an Internet culture of, as Mr. Wilkinson put it, "text-filled anxieties and constantly refreshing your Gmail," "Stealth of Days" seeks to remove its listeners from a harried world.

"It's an emotionally unstable time, especially for people who haven't found their niche," Mr. Wilkinson said. "I know a lot of our fans are quiet people. They're not extroverted or the kind who would blast our music on social media."

On Dec. 5 at Tammany Hall in New York, far from New Deal and Nashville, Jensen Sportag will perform its first live show. The duo will mix and match its pre-recorded sound with live vocals and keyboards. "We're increasing our acceptance of ourselves as artists," Mr. Wilkinson said.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on TwitterTWTR-1.46% @wsjrock.

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